Over at The Simple Dollar, Trent is kicking himself for what he calls “Seven Huge Financial Mistakes” he made while he was in college. Most of these, such as “Going into College without a Clue,” “Not Taking My Classes with Enough Seriousness,” and “Signing Up for a Credit Card—Then Using It with Reckless Abandon,” are functions of youth. No one should be surprised when a young person does exactly these things and all the other alleged missteps Trent describes.
Youth, after all, is wasted on the young.
As a veteran of 15 years of university teaching, I’d like to trot out a radical idea that has silently lurked inside my mind for a long time:
Students should not be allowed to go directly from their senior year in high school to their freshman year in college without passing “Go.” Given the staggering cost of a college or university education, its importance to a young person’s future, and the number of financial predators waiting to prey on the kids the instant they’re set loose with no real responsibilities and no parents to watch over them, America should make it an expectation that everyone will work or do paid community service for two years before enrolling in any form of higher education.
We should set up a national service program for young people, one that could send high school graduates anywhere in the U.S. and to parts of the world that are relatively safe for Americans to live and work. This program should provide jobs that pay more than minimum wage (possibly through a matching tuition savings plan) and build real-world, salable skills.
Then we should give high-school graduates three options:
a. join the military;
b. sign up for a national service program; or
c. get a job in the real world.
In addition to paying young people a salary, the national service program could provide something like a 401(k) for prospective college students, into which pre-tax dollars could be contributed—and employers would match this—to build a fund to help pay college tuition. Actually, for people under, say, 26 years of age, all private, municipal, and state employers could offer a 401(k)-style college tuition fund, with matching contributions. Since soldiers, sailors, Marines, and airmen risk their lives in the service of their country, the military should provide a benefit like the GI Bill with more generous provisions than the proposed tuition fund. The latter would apply only to the national service program and to real-world employment.
This scheme would have a number of advantages.
First, it would expose kids to a period of responsibility at a time when they need to build maturity…and at a time when, as Trent’s post so accurately reveals, many young people are simply not ready for college.
Second, it would allow the students themselves to earn a portion of their college tuition, even it it’s only a small portion. This would help them to appreciate what is entailed in earning the amount a university education costsbefore they rack up a lifetime of student debt, take some of the burden off parents’ shoulders, and give students time to learn responsible financial habits.
Third, it would get kids out of an environment where they can easily be exploited by credit-card mongers and others who make a business of ripping off college students. By the time the young people return to campus life, they will be two years older, more mature, and smarter. The difference between a 19-year-old and a 21-year-old is significant, particularly if that 21-year-old has been earning a living for a while.
Is a national service program socialism?
Yup. So are public universities and community colleges. So is federal support of research at private universities such as Harvard and Princeton. So are city roads, state routes, and interstate highways.
We work together to make life better.
It should be so. There’s nothing wrong with creating a program to employ young people productively and give them time to grow up before completing the final part of their education, when it ultimately will repay us all with a better-educated, wiser, and smarter workforce.
Well, plus a waiver for demonstrating maturity- I know plenty of people who graduated college at age 20 who are fine. Also, I know that getting out of my parent’s house was the most important factor in my maturation. That would have simply been delayed 2 years if I couldn’t go to college.
That’s true: some kids are plenty ready for college at 16 or 17. However, they’re part of a steadily shrinking minority.
And in our culture, getting out of the parental home is an important rite of passage. This scheme would not require that high-school kids continue to live at home.
If you could join a nationwide program that would hire you to do community service work, teach you some skills in the process, and either put you up in hostel-like accommodations or pay you enough that you could afford an apartment, that would get you out of the house–and, with any luck, out of the state.
On the other hand, if you were already reasonably mature and staying with your parents another couple of years would not drive you or them mad, working for two years would allow you to put aside most or all of your take-home pay in a college savings account. Or it might allow you to buy yourself a car or a good computer, both of which are major expenses that parents usually end up paying for their college-age kids.
I’m so with you on this program — and my opinion is also based on years of university teaching. One refinement I might make is for the slacker option — some people are greatly assisted, after being overachievers in high school, by slacking, traveling about, making art. These are the kids who have the nominal maturity, but lack the capacity for fun and curiosity. You *know* who I am talking about. The ones who think learning is instrumental, merely a means to the end. The ones who want to know “Will this be on the test?” The slacker option wouldn’t be paid because the option is for…well, slackers. Basically, I think the minimum age for college should be 21.
Being finished with school is currently a rite of passage for being an “adult.” Delaying college entrance might simply extend adolescence, which is the opposite of what you would like and what most people need.
I’ve had an idea for a long time for a school system that would steer nearly all children starting in 10th grade into a half-time school/ half-time apprenticeship program to learn a trade, either the traditional trades or modern trades like computer programming. There would be a great deal of flexibility in allowing a child to switch between the “academic” and trade tracks and between trade tracks. This would have to be accompanied by more effective and intense teaching in earlier grades. This system would give adolescents real responsibilities and more contact with adults early on, as well as marketable skills. Students would also, hopefully, see more of the relevance of the stuff taught in school. Of course, my suggestion requires dismantling most of current public school system. If I only had a billion dollars to purchase a school system…
Actually, Wanda’s concept is not an unusual idea. It’s just not been very popular. My grandmother and her sister attended a vocational high school during the 1930s! They alternated between work and school assignments until graduation.